Abstract

Global urbanization has caused widespread ecological degradation, yet habitat quality in agricultural plains remains understudied. This study addresses this gap by assessing and predicting land use and habitat quality changes in the Northern Anhui Plain from 2000 to 2030 using the PLUS and InVEST models under four scenarios (natural development, farmland protection, economic development, and sustainable development). The optimal parameters-based geographical detector (OPGD) was employed to identify driving factors. Results show that farmland continuously shrank while built-up land expanded, and habitat quality remained low and declined over time, with low-grade areas expanding. All four 2030 scenarios exhibited declines, with the farmland protection scenario yielding the highest habitat quality and the economic development scenario the lowest. The optimal spatial scale was 4 km, and discretization algorithms and break numbers significantly influenced driver analysis. Locational factors had relatively higher explanatory power, though the overall q-statistic was moderately low, indicating limited single-factor explanation. The study reveals the spatiotemporal dynamics and driving mechanisms of habitat quality in this farmland-dominated plain, providing useful insights for spatial planning and policy-making to support sustainable development in agricultural regions.

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